A Small Family Business, by Alan Ayckbourn, is a riotous exposure of entrepreneurial greed, as the family connections of its protagonist fade…

Summary Well, that’s one down, isn’t it? Nine to go. Next! Thou shalt not kill. What about that then? Let’s have a crack at that one next, shall we? Jack McCracken is a man of principle until, moments after taking over his father-in-law’s business, he discovers his extended family to be thieves and adulterers, operating a network of racketeering from their suburban homes. Rampant self-interest and comic hysteria take over as Jack succumbs. A Small Family Business premiered at the National Theatre, London, 1987, and won the Evening Standard Award for Best Play. ‘This play offers a devastating assault on the way the entrepreneurial values we were taught to admire in the eighties lead ultimately to fraud, theft, self-deceit, even homicide. It is the modern equivalent of An Inspector Calls – only, being Ayckbourn, far funnier. It argues just as passionately as the work of more overtly political writers that there is such a thing as society.’ Guardian